The Forum > Article Comments > Renewables are cheap, reliable, clean. Hubris, hype or hope? > Comments
Renewables are cheap, reliable, clean. Hubris, hype or hope? : Comments
By Geoff Carmody, published 29/6/2022The immediate Australian focus is reliability and price of energy. The political focus on reducing GHGs should highlight the net cost of reducing Australian emissions, too. It hasn't. Why?
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Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 9:14:23 AM
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While the climate change fear-mongering has replaced Covid as the the 'big thing' to keep us inline, and take more money off us via unreliable power, the latest Lowy Institute survey shows that climate change scrapes in at number 5 as a concern for Australians. Climate change lags behind Russia, China, cyber attacks, and Taiwan in that order, with Covid, still being clung to by the 'elites', rated number 11.
The average pleb knows what is important to him or her, despite what the political class thinks. Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 9:59:57 AM
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Germany shows us where blind belief in 100% renewables will lead us. Strangely the public wants nuclear but the political inner circle in several countries won't allow it. There are a number of additional costs to high penetration renewables. These include unsightly new transmission lines, frequency correction (costing one solar farm 25% of its revenue), expensive and limited storage or backup by gas, a fossil fuel. Then there's the side payments like STCs and LGCs which are still generous despite being predicted to have dwindled by now.
I agree with the coal phaseout to show other countries we're doing our bit. However billions of dollars worth of lithium ion batteries won't run smelters and sewage pumps at 2 am. Nuclear is the only realistic replacement for coal and some gas but will take years to implement. Hopefully this penny will drop for the elites before we've painted ourselves into a corner. Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 10:53:57 AM
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An accurate and timely review! Of course renewables aren't the answer! If one had a thousand acres of solar panels? the lowest at cost price for daylight power would come in a 6cents PKWH And would need gas backup when the sun don't shine to maintain that cost of generation price.
Then there is the transmission and distribution losses of around 75% that means, when the power hits you home the cost has already quadrupled plus, whatever margins the wholesaler and retailer impose! Plus the guarantee of supply imposition! Currently ROM coal-fired power averages out at 3 cents PKWH and we pay a retail of not less than 24cents PKWH now with some others in the privatized market paying not less than 30 cents. MSR thorium technology can be re-tasked with burning nuclear waste, which is in MSR tech, just 90%+ unspent fuel! And waste we'd be paid annual millions to store as the world's premier nuclear waste repository. And we would store it, but only after we'd burnt and re-burnt it dozens of times to exhaust the available energy component! And in that process, reduce the half life from thousands of years to just 300! The money earned as a repository and from the subsequent energy profits, would pay for all outlays and a new transmission facility. Which would be under road, cling wrap thin graphene. That would supply micro grids. This in turn would mostly remove all the referred to transmission and distribution losses. If we start now? And building mass produced SMRs in a purpose built government funded and facilitated factory/co-op. In twenty years we'd have massive energy exports from reliable 24/7 power and an income vastly more than what we get for coal today! Plus we'd have 100% carbon emission reduction! And a win/win/win/win all round with no downsides at all! All that prevents any of the above are the airheads in power and the airhead (brainwashed from birth) greens who go ballistic, whenever the word nuclear is mentioned! Alan B. Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 29 June 2022 11:29:21 AM
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Some facts! The longer the half life the less radioactive the material. Bananas are radioactive as are brazil nuts and milk!
In some communities where background radiation is double the average, cancer rates are halved! Thorium is less radioactive than a banana, is fertile not fissile and needs to spend around a fortnight in the blanket of a nuclear reactor to become fissile U233. And then used in MSR Molten salt reactor so more than 90% of the energy component of the most energy dense material in the world is produced for resale at around 1 cent PKWH! Thorium is at least four times more abundant than uranium! Conventional reactors need continuous power to power the electromagnets that lift and lower the fuel rods to main safe power output and need continual monitoring to ensure no meltdown! In MSR technology the fuel and the salt are already molten and therefore no meltdown is possible and if power stops for any reason the system simply self drains into purpose built holding tanks where it solidifies. Moreover, the reaction is self regulating and is walkaway safe. As the medium heats it expands thus slowing the reaction. And as it cools and contracts the neutron exchange thereby increases as does the self regulating reaction! You could weld the thing shut and leave it for thirty or more years without any worry. Just 8 grams of thorium would power your house and car for 100 years. the cost of mining and refining 8 grams of the metal? Around 100 dollars. And that my friends is just one dollar a year. In a conventional solid fuel reactor only around 5-10% of the available energy component is released with the rest 95-90% becoming problematic nuclear waste. In MSR thorium it is exactly the opposite! Alan B. Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 29 June 2022 12:01:54 PM
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Written as an elite profiteer of the renewable industry, if only as an on the side bit player. You can bet your house there is money to be made by Geoff Carmody & Associates from renewables &/or a carbon tax.
It is typical these people to play up the scam of CO2 caused global warming when there is millions in it for them, & they obviously don't give a damn what it does to the nation or the majority of it's people. Posted by Hasbeen, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 12:19:47 PM
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Some more facts. Strontium and the other most harmful waste, C 90. Can be retained in stainless steel vessels. then used on a safely sealed endless production belt to irradiate cryovaced food. Which as long as it remains sealed, (meat, fruit, veges) is farm fresh for decades or centuries, freezer free!
That spent fuel rods, can be sliced wafer thin then encrusted with manmade diamonds that turn nuclear radiation into electric current via nuclear batteries. Manmade diamonds are created by heating and pressurizing sugar in a well known process. Who knows, someday nuclear batteries may power solid state technology flight? Where the only moving part is the air car, plane or rocket? Alan B. Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 29 June 2022 12:33:34 PM
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Well, Hasbeen. That's easy to say without any as usual for you, evidence. Whereas every boy and his dog know that you have considerable coal interests/investments.
Coal can provide carbon-free power by the following method. The coal is cooked and the gas released is scrubbed then used in ceramic fuel cells where the exhaust is mostly pristine water vapor. The heat source would be solar thermal and the process including the mining automated to the enth degree. And the carbon used in various industrial processes or buried. That said, there'd be no point, given solar thermal alone would provide the same power/energy component from an energy source forever free! As is biogas! (methane) Alan B. Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 29 June 2022 12:53:06 PM
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You know that renewable energy is rubbish when a big deal is made of South Australia getting 100% of its power from solar energy for a few minutes. Yes, SA is indeed leading Australia like a lemming leaping into the abyss.
Posted by Fester, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 1:06:23 PM
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Dick Smith says CSIRO and AEMO are lying about the cost of intermittent renewables plus storage. They're doing so by underestimating the quantum of storage needed, which must surely be purposeful. Australian's are the subject of an already failed grand experiment run by Germany, just to appease the boffins/enthusiasts and hobbyists infecting our institutions with their idealistic groupthink and reveries. http://tinyurl.com/bdh4v7pe
Posted by Luciferase, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 2:00:04 PM
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Hey Alan B.
Check this out. Maybe EU countries will move towards these now as events in Ukraine / Russia unfold. http://seenews.com/news/us-nuscale-power-to-provide-14-mln-to-romania-for-smr-plant-studies-789517 I know there is some kind of controversy and backstory relating to this company but I can't remember the details off hand. It relates to George Webb's investigations regarding members of US government. I think they can be placed on a barge (floating reactors) If I come across the details again, I'll share the info. http://neutronbytes.com/2021/05/14/nuscale-launches-effort-to-deploy-floating-smrs/ There's a picture on that webpage above that may interest you. Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 2:25:11 PM
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AC
Nice drawings of smrs wont keep the smelters running either. You might note that execution and reporting of renewable energy in Australia is much like Russia's execution and reporting of its war in Ukraine. I only wish that renewable energy had as much support. Posted by Fester, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 3:19:03 PM
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Last week I did a calculation on a hand calculator when wind was
6% of demand. I forget what the maximum demand was at the time which was something like 40 gwatt. I worked out what would be the cost of a battery for 24 hours at $1 a watt. I was shocked when it came up at 20,000 $Trillion. I went wrong somewhere I hope. That is just a bit of sillyness. However more seriously it is true that renewables are the cheapest source of electricity. A turbine will produce electricity at low cost so long as the wind blows at 25 knots permanently. Over that they shut down. Over a year they produce on average 35% of the electricity that they would if the wind blew at 25 knots all year long. So how do you get the rated output you desire. Easy buy three times as many turbines as you expected. However no point in putting the extra ones on the same tite, they have to be on two other widely separated sites. Costs have gone up quite a bit have they not ? However if the wind does not blow on two of the sites then you need another site with three turbines on it. Can you now see why with the hundreds of turbines we now have the wind proportion of supply is in single digit percentages. Oh correction, it is 12% at the moment ! It is the duplication required that makes renewables hopeless. Anyone who suggests batteries are the solution usually does not understand the difference between Kilowatts and Kilowatt/Hours. They are OK for the passing cloud bank, or for frequency control and things like inertia etc. (ie stiffening the supply). Do some simple calculations yourself and you will see that renewables are as big a con as global warming itself. Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 29 June 2022 10:30:19 PM
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Bazz,
The key word in understanding wind and solar is "erratic". The renewable input is like a saw blade on top of the regular supply from coal. I am at a loss to understand how the renewable fantasy is pursued and nuclear power dismissed. France went nuclear in a decade last century and continues to generate power from it at a fraction the cost of Europe's erratic renewables. Just a bunch of spivs pushing erratic energy for a quick buck without a jot of concern for this country. Posted by Fester, Thursday, 30 June 2022 7:11:15 AM
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More converts are coming out of the woodwork now, joining Zion Lights from Extinction Rebellion, e.g.
http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2022/06/26/chasing_utopian_energy_how_i_wasted_20_years_of_my_life_839185.html?fbclid=IwAR1MZAjnNTyl0bm03TuVEDRxuuooLsKVe66BxlkrrQr6tLdot17ZkfJIcU4 Posted by Luciferase, Thursday, 30 June 2022 12:58:50 PM
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Yes Fester, I think our "betters" have gone stark raving.
Right now at 5 PM the total for wind and solar is 6% of demand. Now they have told us today that wind and solar have to be increased 9 times. Hmm that means 6x9=54 when I went to school, so when they build the network up it will supply 54% of today's demand. Hmmm, seems to be a bit short there. Of course I forgot about the batteries. How many Gwatt/hrs will be need between now and say 9am tomorrow ? That will be an interesting calculation. I think all the info is on the AEMO website to enale that calculation. At $1 a watt/hr I wonder that would cost ? Posted by Bazz, Thursday, 30 June 2022 5:02:35 PM
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Agree Bazz. There are a wealth of wonderful ideas from growing algae to make oil, to biogas and catalysed pyrolysis to quantum dot solar and a number of battery "breakthroughs" like Aluminium/air batteries with a power to weight ratio better than gasoline. I even remember corn stover and pig muck being touted as energy sources, but it has to work and work economically to come to something.
The erratic energy revolution has all the hype, but nobody is asking "How the hell will it work?". Truly terrifying. Posted by Fester, Thursday, 30 June 2022 8:15:18 PM
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Dick Smith does good work. Thanks for mentioning him Luciferase.
Posted by Canem Malum, Thursday, 30 June 2022 10:11:54 PM
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On battery cost you are looking at about $250 per kwh plus all the infrastructure to manage it. Australia currently uses about 600 gwh of electrical energy per day, so that equates to $150 billion per day of storage for the batteries alone. How long would the batteries last? Maybe 15 years?
I suspect that getting Australia's entire energy supply from nuclear would be less than the cost of the batteries for an erratic energy disaster. Posted by Fester, Friday, 1 July 2022 7:11:10 AM
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From the ISP ( http://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/major-publications/integrated-system-plan-isp/2022-integrated-system-plan-isp ):
"Approximately 46 GW/640 GWh of dispatchable storage capacity, 7 GW of existing dispatchable hydro, and 10 GW of gas-fired generation is needed by 2050 to efficiently operate and firm VRE. By 2050, the most likely Step Change scenario would call for over 60 GW of firming capacity to be in place to respond to a dispatch signal." Focusing on energy, the NEM presently consumes about 550 GWh/day (see https://www.aer.gov.au/.../annual-electricity-consumption... ). This would be expected to reach, say, 640GWh/day by 2050 just to meet a population increase and the present level of electrification (i.e. excluding EVs). The 640GWh of rechargeable storage touted is a drop in the ocean towards any inter-seasonal reliability. Even for intra-week variation it is wanting. (No doubt, 100% charge-storage-discharge efficiency is presumed even to get to that number). We are seeking to electrify everything that moves, so why bother with this pathway that doesn't deliver zero-emissions by 2050, nor include the costs of inefficiencies, decommissioning, recycling and regular replacement of intermittents infrastructure? For 320 billion we'll have 1 day of storage on the NEM (if we don't charge EV's), deep intermittent renewables penetration, and gas. That's far from a zero-emissions system, unless you really believe that level of storage is even remotely sufficient to span shortages from intermittents. You'd have to be a total dreamer not to see that we will be running a fossil-fueled system, no less than Germany, which has reverted to burning coal due to its gas shortage. There's a belief that we'll all be running our home and EV from the EV battery. By 2050, IMO, we'll be getting around in driverless EV taxis and won't own cars. Whatever, distributed power seems like a great way to dissocialise the cost and distribution of electricity as it currently exists. The wealthy will always be OK, they're early adopters of batteries even before they make economic sense, but I'm not convinced that everyone else will be Posted by Luciferase, Friday, 1 July 2022 3:05:38 PM
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640 gwh battery storage would be about a quarter of what would be needed, and no mention of how much erratic energy would be needed either. I guess it would be a hard sell if the battery backup was going to cost a trillion dollars, then everything else on top of that. Even at 12 billion dollars per gw, nuclear power could be provided for less than half the cost of a battery and last five times as long.
I am using renewable energy as I write. Not solar as it is raining, but but a nice fire with waste wood I have collected. Guess what? The greenie nutjobs want to ban my fire! Instead they want me to freeze with their erratic energy fantasy, supposedly warmed by the thought that I am saving the planet. Well it doesn't warm me at all! Posted by Fester, Friday, 1 July 2022 3:28:13 PM
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Luciferase you did the same as all the proponents of renewables and
batteries do, you did not explain where and when you would get the power to recharge the b$%%^^y things ! I can tell you, you need another complete set of renewables to recharge the batteries ! Unless, the next day is overcast and windless then you need two more sets of batteries and renewables. In other words as we have been saying adinfinitum it doesn't work ! Why cannot our betters see that ? Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 5 July 2022 11:45:11 PM
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Bazz- Lefties keep pushing the same line- standard Communist propaganda tactics- hoping to distort reality- I think that shortly issues will show up as they start to replace battery packs- and resale values drop.
But this may not be about the environment at all- but about the Communists getting power. Wealthy people often consider a car as a consumable replacing every five years- assuming that they will be able to sell it for north of $10k- I think they'll discover a different economics- then hopefully they'll see the Communist game. Posted by Canem Malum, Saturday, 9 July 2022 2:45:01 AM
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Labor has form in making wild aspirational promises that are either contradictory or impossible to deliver.
- 43% emissions reduction by 2030, - Lower electricity prices - Stable power network These are mutually exclusive pick one. Posted by shadowminister, Friday, 15 July 2022 8:23:00 AM
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The CSIRO is too infected with renewables groupthink to function as a source of advice to Bowen, but he's happy not to interrogate that as we are going with a Renewables Powerhouse snake-oil narrative.
Before delivering his throw away line that nuclear is 'too expensive' (the only issue he raised btw), he might do well to read the following article and others on the same website: http://www.brightnewworld.org/media/2021/2/9/gencostfail?fbclid=IwAR3v9uPLnD80BZPhvmu7034UKqQAc8UjYPI1JIvdSxhacZtu9PFAkK_62Y0 Also, he possibly hasn't noted that Koreans are delivering nuclear to Arab states at a prices that makes AUD320 billion to be spent on a non-solution to emissions here an utterly ridiculous waste of public money. Posted by Luciferase, Friday, 15 July 2022 11:55:50 AM
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Thanks for the article Geoff Carmody.
Posted by Canem Malum, Saturday, 16 July 2022 11:15:49 AM
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Because it looks more precise, more scientific, and might fool morons, which it probably does. But we are not all morons, and we know that it is all bullshite.
The situation remains the way it has always been: no fossil fuels or uranium, no electricity when it is needed, no manufacturing, no jobs, no Western civilisation - which is what the Marxists and carpet-baggers want.
"The Energy Minister correctly says…" we need even more unreliables: solve the problem with more of the problem itself.
The Energy Minister is an idiot.
The only way to solve this self-inflicted problem is to admit that we are NOT responsible for climate change; nor is carbon dioxide; and we have to do what Europe has found it has to do - get back to plentiful, reliable, cheap coal and gas.